5 Tips for an Eco-Friendly Wedding

The perfect wedding typically requires months of preparation to pull off. Brides have gone from radiant to bridezillas with all the stress that comes with it and most would prefer to stick to what they already know just to get everything set up with ease. Eco-friendly usually doesn’t make the cut in the planning process, but these five easy tips can help you plan that perfect wedding, and at the same time, extend a helping hand to Mother Nature.

1. Have one venue.

You may be hard pressed to find a large venue that can accommodate all your guests if you’re planning a big wedding, nevertheless having both the wedding ceremony and reception in one venue saves not only money, it also lessens fuel emissions that may otherwise have been produced should your guests need to ride their cars to get to the next venue for the wedding reception. Not only that, it saves time that would otherwise be taken up by moving from one place to another, and ensures a more smooth-flowing program and hassle-free event.

2. Think green.

An open field or backyard may not have been part of the shortlisted venues on your list, but they serve as the perfect background for your wedding vows should you decide to go green. By having your ceremony out in the sun, you save up on energy and electricity that would otherwise be consumed by having your wedding indoors. Plus, the natural lighting and foliage are great decorations in themselves, and may mean less cost for you as well as this would mean less detail to spend on.

3. Go organic.

This can be as simple as picking natural flowers and plants as centerpieces, but there are more ways in which you can go organic on your wedding day. For invitations, select paper with a high percentage of recycled materials, and have your wedding details be done by calligraphy. You can also choose to use invites with seeds embedded into them to encourage your guests to give back to the environment by simply burying these into the ground and watering them to promote growth. Also opt to avail of the services of a florist that uses pesticide-free flowers, and go for seasonal blooms which don’t need to be transported from too far away, thus cutting down on transportation costs and fuel emissions.

4. Share your food – and flowers!

Like most parties, there may be some food leftover that would certainly go to waste if not stored properly. Why not arrange for your local shelter or soup kitchen to drop by to pick them up instead? You’ll not only be able to help out people in need, you’ll also be ensuring that food items don’t get unnecessarily tossed in the trash. The same thing goes for your flower arrangements. You could either have your guests choose what they like to take home, or donate them to your local hospital. Better yet, take them a nursing home to provide a bit of cheer to those who need them.

5. Wedding dresses

Sure, we’d like to look gorgeous on our wedding day, but unless you plan to get married several times to your man in the same wedding dress, there really isn’t much use for that puffy gown after the wedding festivities are over. Instead, why not opt for borrowed dresses for you and your bridesmaids? This can also be the something borrowed that you need for that ceremony. If you’d prefer to have a new gown, though, try looking into eco-friendly fabrics such as burlap.

If you’re really serious about it, there are a lot of other ways in which you can go green on your wedding day. It’s not as hard to plan as it once was, and you’re doing all this for Mother Nature while getting hitched to The One. How awesome is that?

Melissa Page is a professional writer who loves everything about weddings. She blogs for Music for Scotland, a premier live music agency who represents talented wedding bands across Scotland such as the Muzo-Matic wedding band.